Planning For the Future

Amateur Radio in Canada and elsewhere is changing and to survive we must be sure to change with it. Britain, Gibraltar and Australia have already taken the dramatic step of introducing a new entry-level license with considerable success. Should Canada consider moving in a similar direction?

In May of 2006 RAC formed a committee, headed by Midwest Director Bj. Madsen (VE5FX), to look into the possibility of submitting a proposal to Industry Canada on this subject. This committee, called 'The Advisory Committee on Restructuring of Amateur Radio in Canada', designed and ran a survey to gauge the feelings of Canadian Amateurs on these issues.

This survey ran from mid-July to the end of October. It received a total of 2220 responses: 1815 in English (82%) and 405 in French (18%) along with 699 written comments and over 300 additional e-mails.

The data has now been analyzed and converted to bar graphs indicating the relative responses to each of the 27 questions. The written responses were all read and categorized. Based on this data, a series of recommendations were written to represent the feelings of Canadian Amateurs. This has produced an extensive report for RACís Board of Directors, which they formally adopted at a Board meeting on February 20, 2007.

The complete 30-page report is available for you to download in .PDF format below.

The committee also produced a PowerPoint summary of the report, which you may find useful for presentation to your club. It is also downloadable below.

Committee Report to the Board of Directors on the Restructuring of Amateur Radio in Canada (PDF file)